08 Apr 2003 | indi said...

I'm waiting for a coalition soldier to walk up and tap him on the shoulder while he's on camera denying Baghdad has been taken.

Exploding pencils? Ah well, at least we get some comic relief out of this guy.

08 Apr 2003 | Steve said...

It is rather amusing to hear accounts of his take on the war. I wish I could remember the question a British reporter asked him the other day, in that classic dry British fashion, that was a very polite way of saying "how big an idiot are you"?

Of course, al-Sahaf is only being slighly more obstinate and duplicitous than other spokesmen involved in the war. Remember how the US/UK "captured" Um Qasar pretty much daily in the first week of the war? By about day 6, they finally got it right. Basra was taken care of a couple days into the war too, but oops, I guess not.

General rule in wartime, believe nothing anyone tells you. Everyone has an agenda to push, and the various media are more intent on pushing a "supportive" agenda than being accurate. (Note last night's headlines that Saddam "may have been killed" - read between the lines, and no one knows what the hell happened. The accurate story was that a palace where he was thought to be was bombed. Leave the conclusions for later. But that doesn't fit the American media's cheerleading, believe-what-the-military-tells-us aproach.)

08 Apr 2003 | David (OnFire4jc) said...

Steve, you have a point, but it helps if your facts are straight. ;) It wasn't a palace that was bombed, but potentially a restaurant.

08 Apr 2003 | Tim said...

I think a lot of companies could use a guy like Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf...like, imagine if a company like Overture had him as their PR guy (I use Overture, only because I just got an annoying cold call from them):

When you advertise in Overture Premium Listings, your business appears in the top U.S. search sites, enabling you to grill your competitors' stomachs in hell.

08 Apr 2003 | yuckmouth said...

Maybe he hasn't heard that Denial is a river in Egypt, being from Iraq and all. That is rich!

08 Apr 2003 | Steve said...

Steve, you have a point, but it helps if your facts are straight. ;) It wasn't a palace that was bombed, but potentially a restaurant.

Well, that helps make my point, actually. I haven't checked news this morning. The accounts last night were saying one of his residences, and that he may have been killed. Now that I check things, it's a "building," and his fate is unknown. Why not just say that from the start instead of swallowing the spin?

Things like this make me so glad I got out of journalism.

08 Apr 2003 | nathan said...

One news source said that we had broken Iraqi "Jaguar" encryption tech (with help from the Brits that sold it to Iraq in the 70's) which only the senior Iraqi leadership uses (not Saddam's doubles). Supposedly US intel had been monitoring them this way for a while.

Interesting is that this story got out, you NEVER reveal that you've broken your enemy's encryption until a war is over, so either the US has an intel leak, OR Saddam is certainly dead, OR the report is untrue.

08 Apr 2003 | MegaGrunt said...

If only Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf had his own blog....

Where Is Sadam
http://dear_sadam.blogspot.com

Seems to be available!

08 Apr 2003 | Benjy said...

Nathan, my thoughts exactly. And considering that I heard the Jaguar technology cracking info from Andrea Mitchell, who's a longtime Washington correspondent I believe that somebod at the White House or Pentagon gave out that info. There must be better intelligence that the bombing was a success than they are leading on to the press. I think they got Saddam, but after all the premature headlines (Basra under control, chemical weapons found) they aren't going to jump the gun.

And as for the Iraqi Intelligence Minister, my favorite comment from him was after explaining that they still controlled the airport and how he would take the western journalists for a tour of the airport after they cleaned up all ther dead American troops.

08 Apr 2003 | Kip Ingram said...

I found myself wondering yesterday why the Western press still covers this guy, since he's clearly lost touch with reality. Then I decided that it must be for the entertainment value. :-)

08 Apr 2003 | cj said...

It's important to remember that if Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf said anything other than, "we're killing and roasting those american infidels," he would probably be shot on site.

08 Apr 2003 | nathan said...

For those of you who are "anti-war", or feared a "quagmire", or want France to dictate American foreign policy, or said "no blood 4 oil", or believe that somehow Bush is akin to Hitler, I want you to realize how very deeply wrong and misguided you are:

Jailed Iraqi children run free as marines roll into Baghdad suburbs (AFP)

08 Apr 2003 | indy nerd said...

children run free...
Freed from mines of Mola Ram!

08 Apr 2003 | jp said...

don't show me a picture and tell me I'm "deeply wrong"

Telling War's Deadly Story at Just Enough Distance (orig. from NYT)
how many kids have we done this to?

didn't the "regime" release a bunch of people from detention before we attacked? was that good?

It's far more complicated than a single picture or story, even if you do believe that picture/story.

08 Apr 2003 | Keith said...

This guy continues to crack me up. I hate to laugh at anything to do with something so serious, but I can't help but chuckle everytime I see him pop on the screen.

08 Apr 2003 | p8 said...

"... or believe that somehow Bush is akin to Hitler"

The ties go way back. President Bush's family had played a central role in financing and arming Adolf Hitler for his takeover of Germany.

08 Apr 2003 | p8 said...

"Jailed Iraqi children run free as marines roll into Baghdad suburbs"

Since when does the US governement care about imprisoned children? Heck it's one of the few countries where children can be sentenced to death. Some even innocent.

Maybe this country, where...

- the police shoots at peaceful protesters
- the president is the son of the former head of that nation's secret police and the president's victory is based on disputed votes cast in a province governed by his brother (scroll down to " A Coup d'Etat in a Pitiful Third-World Country ").

...should be freed of it's regime. A lot of innocent people will die but at least they will have a 'real democracy'.

08 Apr 2003 | p8 said...

What I don't understand is: does Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf stay in contact with Saddam? If so wouldn't it be easy to track down Saddam?
And why haven't the Coalition Forces already taken him out? Or do his 'out of this world' statements benifit the C Forces.

08 Apr 2003 | nathan said...

I love it when people try to say that the US is morally equivalent to, or worse than, regimes like Iraq's...

p8 cites "police shoots at peaceful protesters", but of course p8 fails to mention that the police used non-lethal force on protesters that weren't "peaceful" but, according to police, were throwing rocks, setting fires, and tresspassing.

a) If you are a pacifist, that's fine, just don't expect to be taken seriously concerning foreign policy.

b) If you object to the war on partisan grounds or say "but America is evil too!", see a) above.

c) If you believe that the coalition forces might fail, or that Saddam would ever disarm peacefully, or that the suffering and death of innocents would somehow be lessened if Saddam was left in power, maybe you shouldn't believe everything you hear from the Iraqi Ministry of Truth.

08 Apr 2003 | Paperhead said...

I think a lot of companies could use a guy like Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf...like, imagine if a company like Overture had him as their PR guy

"We have completely crushed Google, their algorithms are burning in hell . . ."

09 Apr 2003 | p8 said...

Nathan, you presented the freeing of the iraqi children as the ultimate reason for justifying the war on Iraq. Well, there are a lot more countries where children could/should be freed.

And this war isn't about the freeing of the Iraqi people. I hate how the US government is lying to me to make me feel better.

"... but, according to police, were throwing rocks, setting fires, and tresspassing"

Could be true. Let's just say I have heard too many stories of police brutality during demonstrations.

09 Apr 2003 | p8 said...

Meanwhile the US slowly put forward the new puppet: Chalabi.

A man who is convicted of fraud, is not supported in the region, hasn't been in Iraq for more than 30 years, is "not even qualified to run a grocery shop" and doesn't represent the real opposition (the kurds and the islamist shia).

09 Apr 2003 | alisha said...

For those of you who are "anti-war", or feared a "quagmire", or want France to dictate American foreign policy, or said "no blood 4 oil", or believe that somehow Bush is akin to Hitler, I want you to realize how very deeply wrong and misguided you are.
---
Nathan youre pretty misguided yourself. No one questions that Saddam is an ass and that his people suffer and that the world would be better off minus dictators like him - that is clear, and there are dozens more like him out there, just waiting to be "shocked and awed". The rest of the world questions current American leadership and policy. dont you get it? Its not about Iraq - its about everything that has built upto Iraq. You expect the rest of the world to trust this administration when theyve done everything in thier power to allienate allies. What the current administration is flaunting is a nationalistic stance behind the guise of patriotism - no, its not even a guise, theyre basicly hanging it out for all to see. And you wonder why America attracts only neo-conservative adminitrations such as Spains.

09 Apr 2003 | alisha said...

Might I add that I expect way more diplomacy (both in policy and use of language) and teamwork from a country that has positioned itself as the worlds police and superpower.

"I think the United States must be humble," Bush said during a televised presidential debate. "We must be proud and confident of our values, but humble in how we treat nations that are figuring out how to chart their own course."

...He said that the message he wanted to send out "loud and clear" around the world was that, "This will be a nation that will act in a humble fashion, with one thing in mind, that's peace and freedom."

so where is this "humble foriegn policy"? Ive seen none of it.

09 Apr 2003 | p8 said...

Nathan, if you had posted this you might have convinced me: jubilant Iraqis have greeted arriving marines as regime begins to crumble in Baghdad.

09 Apr 2003 | Steve said...

Nicely put, Alisha. Not to mention that the liberation of Iraq is simply the latest in a long line of justifications offered by Bush/Blair for the war. And by latest I do mean the latest, most recent one, since the previous several all kinda fell apart.

10 Apr 2003 | Ian said...

Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf: the guy is a legend and saved us all from along drawn out war. So outrageous were his assertions, that even the most hardened Iraqi must have realised just how dire their plight was. His was not a propagandarist. He is and will always be a the man who saved Iraq, and the man who saved us from the bloodletting of war! Thank you.....actually I have a job vacancy, fancy a job?

10 Apr 2003 | Brian Everett said...

He's the Joe Isuzu of foriegn relations.

10 Apr 2003 | Illusion said...

08 Apr 2003 | nathan said...
For those of you who are "anti-war", or feared a "quagmire", or want France to dictate American foreign policy, or said "no blood 4 oil", or believe that somehow Bush is akin to Hitler, I want you to realize how very deeply wrong and misguided you are:

Jailed Iraqi children run free as marines roll into Baghdad suburbs (AFP)

If you look carefully to this pic you will find out that those children have never been inside any prison. If they were in an iraqi prison, belive me, they would not look this nice and clean, this pic is fixed, only propaganda, not reality!

I Guess you americans have not seen iraqien people before this war, if you had, you would be abel to see that those childrens have not been to any prison.

11 Apr 2003 | bioharmony said...

Mr Al Sahaf

Do you really believe all the stuff you kept saying? Guns and canons firing in the background but you kept saying that the US forces were not in Baghdad!!!!!

You are to be congratulated for providing the comedy relief for what was a dreadful war.

Im sure you will be pleased to know that true Christians did not support this war. One of the seven things God hates is
"hands that shed innocent blood" and that is true of both Saddam's regime and the US forces. Proverbs 6:17 - The Holy Bible

11 Apr 2003 | IraqiSupporter said...

May peace pervail in Iraq. The coalition sucks. They are targeting innocent for their capitalist gains. Down with capitalism.
I really wish all the coalition troops (no hard feelings mates!)were slaughtered by the Iraqi's. That would teach them a lesson. Dont F::k with Muslim and asian countries, we will bury you in your back f::kin yard!

11 Apr 2003 | spellbinder said...

May peace pervail in Iraq. The coalition sucks. They are targeting innocent for their capitalist gains. Down with capitalism.
I really wish all the coalition troops (no hard feelings mates!)were slaughtered by the Iraqi's. That would teach them a lesson. Dont F::k with Muslim and asian countries, we will bury you in your back f::kin yard!

19 Nov 2003 | Daniel said...

allah is a false god-devil-satan

islam is false religion

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